Incident report · read from OpenAI's status page

OpenAI incident: Elevated Errors for Thinking mode in ChatGPT

Resolved after 2 h 55 m (20 Aug 2026, 13:56–16:51 UTC), impact minor, affecting Conversations, ChatGPT Work and Image Generation.

Timeline

1. 20 Aug 2026 at 13:56 UTC investigating

   We are investigating an issue causing some users to experience errors when using Thinking in ChatGPT.

2. 20 Aug 2026 at 14:12 UTC investigating

   We are investigating an issue causing some users to experience errors when using Thinking mode and Image Generation in ChatGPT.

3. 20 Aug 2026 at 14:53 UTC monitoring

   We have implemented a mitigation for the issue for elevated errors for Thinking Mode and Image Generation in ChatGPT/ChatGPT Work

4. 20 Aug 2026 at 16:51 UTC resolved

   All impacted services have now fully recovered.

Affected components

• ChatGPT · Conversations: degraded for 2 h 55 m
• ChatGPT · ChatGPT Work: degraded for 2 h 55 m
• ChatGPT · Image Generation: degraded for 2 h 55 m

Source

OpenAI's own report of this incident, on OpenAI's status page. This page is a record of OpenAI's own report; where the two disagree, theirs is right.

Last checked 8 Sep 2026 at 16:15 UTC.

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